| theXman |
quote:
Originally posted by mdxx3
Hey guys, thanks for the info! I went to a nearby store after work yesterday after reading your suggestions. I saw the Canon A620 and SD550 Elph that you guys mentioned. Since nobody mentioned a Nikon or a Minolta, I guess I don't have to buy another Nikon/Minolta:D (maybe next time). I mostly looked at the Canon stuff but they didn't have it on sale and didn't allow negotiations on the price... so I guess I don't have to buy one but can wait for it to go on sale. I also saw the Canon SD450 and SD600 there and these appeared to be a little smaller. The smaller the better - easier to stuff it into the wife's handbag since it's for her anyways. But I left that place confused as usual... but at least got it narrowed down to the Canon brand. So I went home and checked the Canon website. They indicated the SD600 is also new and the features/specs looked right and it's light too. Then I went over to B&H Photo and ordered this SD600 along with an extra battery, rapid charger and leather case. Those stuff should arrive here this Thursday. Will have to go find a 2 GB SD card soon. Thanks.
If you don't mind what the price is for SD600 from B&H? |
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| wmquan |
Secure Digital cards have finally come down in price, in a big way.
For $64.99, there's a Sandisk Ultra II SD card that can plug directly into a USB port. That might be really handy. Clever idea, you fold the card and just stick it into a USB slot. Of course, if your PC has a card reader or an SD slot, then it's not worth paying extra for this.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produ...filiate=bizrate
You can find "regular speed" (not faster like the Sandisk Ultra II) 1 GB SD cards for about $20-$30 after rebate nowadays. Here's one for $25 after rebate:
http://www.meritline.com/kingston-1...al-sd-card.html
2GB cards have come down in price too. Sandisk Ultra II 2 GB SD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16820180616
There are some non-name brand ones for about $65 after the rebate.
Though most folks with a regular point-and-shoot don't need a 2GB card. |
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| mdxx3 |
quote:
Originally posted by theXman
If you don't mind what the price is for SD600 from B&H?
It's $319.95 plus second day air shipping.
Also ordered a 2 GB card from newegg earlier today during noon time. The last time we went traveling we filled the entire 1 GB (other camera) and had to put in second/spare CF card... so this time around it has to be a larger capacity card.
While watching TV this evening, the wife was asking if I bought the camera already. Am I supposed to keep buying cameras non-stop or what?:8: Hmm... there's this new DSLR with that special feature where it can do a preview on the LCD without having to click... never mind. Must resist!!! |
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| Pauls MDX |
quote:
Originally posted by wmquan
Secure Digital cards have finally come down in price, in a big way.
For $64.99, there's a Sandisk Ultra II SD card that can plug directly into a USB port. That might be really handy. Clever idea, you fold the card and just stick it into a USB slot. Of course, if your PC has a card reader or an SD slot, then it's not worth paying extra for this.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produ...filiate=bizrate
You can find "regular speed" (not faster like the Sandisk Ultra II) 1 GB SD cards for about $20-$30 after rebate nowadays. Here's one for $25 after rebate:
http://www.meritline.com/kingston-1...al-sd-card.html
2GB cards have come down in price too. Sandisk Ultra II 2 GB SD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16820180616
There are some non-name brand ones for about $65 after the rebate.
Though most folks with a regular point-and-shoot don't need a 2GB card.
Those cards with 1 GB or 2 GB cards are amazing. My Nikon Coolpix can take up to 30 minutes of movies in high resolution in addition to over 700 pictures depending on the resolution. It's amazing and I'm only using the 1GB Sandisk Ultra II. I couldn't
image how much data the 2 GB would hold. These cards are amazing, and like you said the price is still dropping. Amazing what the technology is going to. |
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| wmquan |
Best price I've seen so far for the SD600 is $298 with shipping at Butterfly Photo. I'm not familiar with them though they seem to have high ratings:
http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Cano...type=bottomline
ZipZoomFly has it at $314.99 with free shipping. I've ordered from them before with no problems.
B&H is also a solid outfit. |
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| Pauls MDX |
quote:
Originally posted by wmquan
Best price I've seen so far for the SD600 is $298 with shipping at Butterfly Photo. I'm not familiar with them though they seem to have high ratings:
http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Cano...type=bottomline
ZipZoomFly has it at $314.99 with free shipping. I've ordered from them before with no problems.
B&H is also a solid outfit.
That is an excellent price on the Cannon! |
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| desertbriez |
| i prefer to have 2 or more "smaller" cards than 1 big one! that way if one fails (and i did have a couple cf cards fail! :3: ) so that's why i went with the 1 gb... and will order another one... i don't have any trips planned.. so the one will take care of anything we need now... if we plan any trips.. i'll probably add a 3rd card then! |
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| Pauls MDX |
quote:
Originally posted by desertbriez
i prefer to have 2 or more "smaller" cards than 1 big one! that way if one fails (and i did have a couple cf cards fail! :3: ) so that's why i went with the 1 gb... and will order another one... i don't have any trips planned.. so the one will take care of anything we need now... if we plan any trips.. i'll probably add a 3rd card then!
I totally agree that's why I had purchased an additional 1 GB card as a back up. Just in case I go nuts with the movie taking. It's amazing how clear and large the movies are with the Nikon Coolpix 7 megapixel Camera. |
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| desertbriez |
| i haven't done too much with movies (i've only had my canon a couple weeks!) but the few i took playing around with it are AMAZING! i hardly ever used my digital camcorder before.. i'll probaly NEVER pick it up now! |
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| mdxx3 |
Lucky I have another 1 GB SD card from my PDA that I can use anytime if I need a spare/backup for the camera. All the data on this SD/PDA is disposable at any time as they're mostly music files that I don't listen to... I use a HDD-based player in the MDX for all the music these days. I have another spare/useless SD card sitting somewhere inside the mini-DV camcorder. Hmm... I haven't looked at this card for a long time already but it's a small capacity SD card anyways. Actually the entire mini-DV camcorder is a waste!! I still have video clips trapped inside various mini-DV tapes and can't get out to the TV!!! Well, one of those new 3" DVD camcorders will be more useful if I ever want to see future video clips again:)
Anyways, the crazy part about all these flash memory cards for cameras is they're like 4 or 5 times cheaper per GB than just 3 or 4 years ago. My old 1 GB CF (not SD) card a few years back is more than twice as expensive as the latest 2 GB SD card. Grrrr... Then this 1 GB SD from about a year ago is about the same price as the new 2 GB SD today. I'll have to wait for another year so that I can have a 4 GB card for the same price as the 2 GB today. Hmm.... too bad they just won't give us twice the MDX for half the price:) |
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| wmquan |
Question for the folks with the newer Canon Digital ELPH's:
Have you shot fast moving subjects with the "Kids & Pets" scene mode, and how did they turn out (especially if the subject was moving very quickly)? Were they blurry? Or was the focus on the subject imprecise, or the background very fuzzy?
I love the compactness and high quality of the Digital ELPH's. But the lack of greater manual control worries me. I'm not an expert photographer, for sure. But I've learned to use shutter priority for action photos. I set the shutter to 1/250th of a second or sometimes 1/500th, and I can usually get a fast-moving subject without any blurring.
I've found this to be invaluable with fast-moving kids, especially if they are leaping into the water, playing sports, etc. The bigger hassle for those shots are anticipating the shutter lag, so the shot is taken at the right moment. That just comes with experience with a particular camera.
I know a digital SLR would work much better here, but I always want to have a compact camera I can easily shove in my pocket.
The Digital ELPH's can have shutter speeds as low as 1/2000, but I'm curious what people have found with the algorithm. Too fast a shutter speed, and the camera will use a too-wide aperature and the depth of field will be very low (background will be more fuzzy, or, worse yet, the focus on the subject may be fuzzy).
Because of this, I've been eyeing the Casio EX-Z750 and its just-introduced replacement. Not the same optical and digital processing refinement of the Canons, but very competitive in size, price, and with more manual control (shutter priority, aperture priority, etc.).
Thanks. |
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| wmquan |
For folks still looking for a fast SD card:
ZipZoomFly has a Corsair 2GB, 133x card for $69.99 - $20 rebate = $49.99 with free shipping.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produ...filiate=bizrate
2GB too small for you? 4GB 150x card for $109.99, free shipping, no rebates.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produ...82502-19&ps=ho2
Caution: some devices (e.g. some card readers) won't handle an SD card with more than 2GB.
Someone said that flash memory prices would drop a lot during the first half of this year. They weren't kidding! |
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| mdxx3 |
| William, I wish I could try the new ELPH in that mode and give you the answer today... but that new camera is now thousands of miles away from me. All of them (wife, 2 kids, plus a bunch of my in-laws (her side)) ran off to some kind of family reunion + vacation without me.:3: No. Wait... I'm free and now living in the no-nag zone!!!:29: Anyways, will know in 10 days after they get back. Picture quality and colors from this Canon is fantastic from all the pictures she took while playing with it! Battery life is indeed pretty decent even with the flash going. Shutter lag on this ELPH seems to be minimal (after I use an aging Nikon digital, everything else newer is much faster than it!). I really don't mind using it even though it's the wife's cam... means it's a pretty darn good camera. Even has infrared focusing unlike my old/current Nikon. Motion video capture works nice in low light too and the AVI file format makes it easy to deal with (like email to others and they won't reply "Can't open file!"). The LCD at the back is huge enough so that it's easy to see whatever we're photographing. As for the speed, the last I remember... there is a setting for Fast ISO (fast "film" speed) plus the usual Auto ISO (whatever the camera wants to do). It doesn't have the 3:2 aspect ratio (shop print/paper photo format) setting like my current Nikon, but this ELPH (SD600) has a 16:9 widescreen capture setting for the photos! In fact it has way too many settings in there to be an auto-easy-cam that while setting it up, I was kinda hoping they will put in an administrator password or Guest setting so that I can lock down half the settings and then hand the camera to the wife!:rolleyes: The picture quality is super and I like it!! :29: |
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